Under the Midnight Sky

by Anna Romer

  ‘When are you seeing Lil again?’

  ‘Wednesday.’

  ‘You think she’ll tell you what happened to her sister? This is Lilly Wigmore, remember. The girl who stayed silent all those years. Never breathed a word to the detectives and media hounds, who would’ve made it their business to crack her. What makes you think she’s going to tell you?’

  Abby wiped her hands on her jeans and slid the diary page from her back pocket. She waggled it in the air. ‘I’ve got this juicy carrot to dangle in front of her.’

  Tom took the page from her, unfolded it and pretended to scan what was written there, even though most of it he’d already memorised. The paper was warm. Distracting. He passed it back. ‘Keep it somewhere safe.’

  She returned it to her pocket, tilting her hips to one side. His effort not to follow the movement with his eyes caused him to sway towards her. Hoping she hadn’t noticed, he asked, ‘Does being here creep you out?’

  She made a scoffing noise. ‘Because someone might have died upstairs?’

  He nodded.

  Inching closer, she smiled. ‘It’d take more than a seventy-year-old bloodstain to rattle my cage.’ She peered at him, her gaze steady. ‘You seem different tonight, Tom. What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m good. Just . . .’ Reaching out, he cupped the side of her head and smoothed his thumb over her eyebrow. ‘You’ve been in the garden.’

  She stepped back, brushing at the spot.

  ‘Yeah, Lil gave me a guided tour. You know, she would have to be mid-seventies, but she does everything – chops firewood, mows the lawn, she even built a shade house last summer . . .’

  Tom blinked. Such soft skin. He wanted to touch her again. But then he recalled something from his time in the desert all those years ago – a brown snake he’d caught in order to throw it out of his hut. He had only gripped its narrow tail for a moment, yet he’d never forgotten the soft velvet nap of its skin. Or the sinewy strength beneath.

  He eased out the breath he’d been holding. Abby might be rose petals and velvet on the outside, but if he let himself get too close, too caught up in her, then he’d end up like the last time he lost his heart. Badly bitten.

  ‘Tom, where have you gone? I feel like I’m having a conversation with the invisible man.’

  He sighed. Resistance was useless. Up until now, he’d taken great pains to be invisible. To remove himself from life, detach his feelings. But not any more. He wanted to be seen, wanted to be visible again. Visible to her. In a crushing moment of clarity, he knew how impossible that would be. She might be carried away right now by the excitement of unravelling the Frankie Wigmore mystery, anticipating her prized interview with him, but once all that was out of the way, what then?

  She’d fly away so fast his head would spin.

  She was frowning at him, her head tilted like a curious bird as she waited for his response. He went back to the cutting board. Picking up the knife, he started slicing the rest of the tomatoes into translucent slivers.

  ‘The salmon’s ready for the oven,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Hope you’re hungry.’

  • • •

  We ate at the big redwood table on the verandah. Candles fluttered in hurricane jars, and kerosene lamps burned citronella. The lemony scent mingled with the sweet perfume of jasmine that drifted from the garden.

  Tom had baked the salmon to perfection, its crispy skin enclosing flesh so buttery and delicate it melted on my tongue. I couldn’t get enough of the Greek salad wolfing down most of it while he related funny anecdotes from his past. The dinner, he explained, was to thank me for all my hard work – unpacking boxes, making sandwiches, getting the dust bunnies under control.

  ‘And for firing up my creative engines again.’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ I objected.

  ‘You found Frankie’s diary. You found Lil and Joe. You won Lil over enough to convince her to open up about her past. You’ve done all the hard yards. Meanwhile I’m the one reaping the rewards. I haven’t been this inspired for years.’

  ‘Believe me, Tom, they’re not hard yards. I’m enjoying the whole cloak-and-dagger thing as much as you are. Tell me, how long will it take you to finish the book? I’m already dying to read it.’

  He narrowed his gaze. ‘Not so fast, young lady. I’ve been blabbing about myself all night. How about you take the stage for a while?’

  ‘Nothing to tell. My life story is incredibly boring.’

  ‘Come on. You managed not to yawn too much during my ramble. Let me return the favour.’

  I snorted, then tried to cover the sound with my serviette and knocked over my wineglass, which made me giggle. Tom spluttered, and then we were both off like hysterical teenagers.

  I wiped my eyes. ‘Sorry, Tom, someone must have spiked the wine because what you said wasn’t all that funny—’

  He made a hurt face, and that got me going again. My giggles, punctuated by noisy hiccups, took me a good five minutes to get under control. Tom’s wisecracks didn’t help. By the time I settled, my ribs were aching and my face felt stretched out of shape. I hadn’t laughed so hard or so long since . . . well, in longer than I could remember.

  Tom got serious. ‘So, off you go. And I’ll do my best not to yawn.’

  I shook my head. ‘I went to university like everyone else. Attended wild parties, drank too much red wine, smoked too much pot, and graduated with far better marks than I deserved.’

  ‘What did you study?’

  I hesitated. For almost ten years I had blocked that part of my life, hoping it would wither away and let me forget. No such luck. It had withered away, all right. But there was a part of me deep inside that would never forget. I took a deep breath. ‘Sustainable farming.’

  A look of wonder spread over Tom’s face. ‘You’re a farmer?’

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. ‘I wanted to be. Once.’

  ‘So how did you go from farmer to’—he grimaced—‘journalist?’

  ‘Via an extremely meandering path.’

  He steepled his fingers and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘Tell.’

  I took a fortifying sip of wine. ‘After uni I still wasn’t sure where my real passion lay, so I started doing short courses: permaculture, organic stock breeding, natural land management. I cast my net far and wide, exploring all possibilities.’

  ‘Did you find it?’

  ‘Crazily enough, I’d been looking in all the wrong places. Branching out, instead of homing in on what I loved. One day I realised that my “thing” was microcosms. Life in miniature. Tiny things had always fascinated me: doll’s houses, terrariums, ant farms. As soon as I realised that, the answer came easily. I enrolled in a beekeeping course in Western Australia and flew over to Perth where I—’

  Where I’d met my husband. And where, in a whirlwind three weeks, we had fallen in love. Or at least, Rowan had. He was one of the course conveners. We met over lunch one day and hit it off. His dream was to get married and have a family, do the whole off-grid self-sufficiency thing, which I adored. But despite the passion of our early days – including the wedding that happened so fast it took my breath away – I kept him at arm’s length. Not intentionally. But there was something about having my life plotted before me that felt suffocating.

  I never told Rowan about Deepwater. How could I? I never told him anything about my past. So when I said goodbye that scorching February day nine years ago, he watched me leave with eyes that were full of confusion and disappointment. Since then, I had carried that look close to my heart as a silent reminder.

  ‘So you flew to Perth,’ Tom prompted. ‘Beekeeping?’

  I refilled our wineglasses. ‘Met the man of my dreams and got married. Within a year we were divorced.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My brother says I push people away.’

  Tom’s smile shifted down a gear. ‘Maybe you just married the wrong guy.’

  I shrugged. ‘He w
asn’t the problem. I’m pretty sure it was me. I never had much luck settling in one place for too long. Itchy feet, you know?’

  ‘So what about the beekeeping?’

  ‘I went off the whole farming gig after that. I flew to New York to visit a friend and ended up at a Greenpeace rally. It moved me, I guess. I felt inspired to write about it, and on a whim sent my story to, of all places, the New York Times. They bought it. You could have knocked me over with a feather.’

  ‘It must’ve been one hell of a good article.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Beginner’s luck.’

  ‘More like a passion for your subject.’

  ‘Hmm. I never thought of that.’

  Tom narrowed his eyes. ‘And it gave you a taste for the power of words, so you kept going.’

  ‘In a way. I ended up at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival that year, which blew me away. So I wrote about that, too. Took photos, interviewed a few of the old musos. One thing led to another, and I started writing editorials for various newspapers.’ I shrugged. ‘It was fun. I adored the US, so I travelled around. Going to out-of-the-way places, writing about them. Selling my articles freelance.’

  ‘What brought you back here?’

  I found my smile, but the warm sunniness of a moment ago flickered and died. I gazed out over the garden at the treetops, silver in the moonlight.

  One night, at a guesthouse in North Carolina, I’d been kicking back watching television and had stumbled on a documentary about notorious Australian murders. Hearing the Australian accent, I’d pumped up the volume. And then suddenly there he was: a thirty-something man with shaggy brown hair and scorching eyes – blue, I recalled, though the poor reception on the small TV turned his pupils blacker than spots on a rotten apple. Those eyes looked directly out from the screen and fixed their gaze on me.

  I know you, they seemed to say. You’re that Radley girl, aren’t you? The troublemaker who cost me everything. The one who got away.

  I had sat frozen on the couch. My legs tucked under me, a glass of champagne raised to my lips. Staring numbly at the decades-old footage while a female voiceover delivered the grim report.

  The stunning Deepwater Gorge Nature Reserve, situated fifteen kilometres from the rural town Gundara in north-eastern Australia, is a popular tourist spot. But in June 1995, when bushwalkers discovered the remains of a teenage girl buried in a shallow grave, the reserve became a place of speculation and terror. Further searching led to the discovery of another body ten kilometres away. Both bodies were thought to have lain forgotten in the forest for ten or more years . . .

  Sitting on the couch in front of the TV that night, champagne turning sour on my lips, everything changed. I went from a bubbly girl with a taste for travel to a thing immobilised. A fly in amber, trapped in time. Frozen by the memories that I’d somehow buried along with the gawky little nobody I used to be. Memories of the sweet young friend I had sent to her death.

  ‘Abby, are you all right?’

  I pushed back my chair. ‘Dessert?’

  Tom frowned. ‘Um . . . okay. I hope you like sticky date pudding?’

  ‘Great!’ I stood too quickly, knocking my chair over. As I set it back on its feet, I elbowed my plate off the table. It hit the decking side on, and then dropped onto its face, cracking in two.

  I looked at Tom. This time, my antics hadn’t made him laugh. He was watching me, his eyes thoughtful. I collected the broken plate, then the other empty dinner dishes and salad bowls, and retreated to the kitchen. By the time I brought out dessert, my hands had stopped shaking.

  ‘Frozen custard on the side?’

  Tom brightened, but I could tell his smile was as fake as my own. ‘Sounds good.’

  I scooped half the custard into my bowl, but then choked down my sticky date pudding, barely tasting it. My knee knocked against my chair leg. My cheeks flamed. All I could think about was leaving the table, cleaning the kitchen, and escaping to my room.

  Tom cleared his throat. ‘Do you drown everything in custard?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  He put down his spoon. ‘What happened just now, Abby? One minute we were getting along famously. Now we’re all weird and stilted.’ He tried to smile. ‘I feel like I’m having a conversation with the invisible woman.’

  Hearing him echo my words from earlier softened me, brought me back to earth. ‘I suppose I finally realised that running away wasn’t going to solve my problems. So I came back to sort my life out.’

  ‘How’d you go with that?’

  ‘Still working on it, I guess.’ I pushed back my chair, carefully this time, and got to my feet. Collected the last of the dishes and the empty wine bottle. ‘It was a lovely dinner, Tom. Thank you for cooking, it was a real treat.’

  I loaded the dishwasher, tossed in the detergent and set it purring. When I’d finished, I threw a last glance over my shoulder to the window.

  Tom remained at the table, the citronella lanterns painting him in flickering lights, while the shadows stalked around him. He sat very still, glaring out at the night, as though my departure had somehow turned him to stone.

  • • •

  He stayed on the verandah until he saw her light go off upstairs, and then heaved himself to his feet. He made his way over to the railing, careful not to catch the rubber crutch heels on the decking. He leaned against the rail, drinking in the sweet night air as he searched the distant hills.

  He wished he were out there now. Camped beside a river somewhere, far from civilisation. Just a crackling fire for company and stars glittering overhead.

  Weeks ago, the wilderness had been his happy zone, but his injuries had made it impossible for him to escape there now. It had always been his go-to place, even as a young man trying to make sense of the world.

  And I’m still trying.

  They’d been getting along so well. Laughing, being stupid, guards down. Even now his mouth twitched as he thought of her, the way she’d wheezed with laughter, that wild hair lashing her shoulders, her eyes alight. What he wouldn’t give to step back in time to that moment, just before the mood had turned. Ask a different question, change the subject. Or maybe just reach for her hand, the way he’d been wanting to all night.

  One by one, he doused the lanterns then went over to the table and placed his hand on the back of her chair. He’d wanted to charm her. Peel away the layers, get inside her well-guarded head. Instead, she’d charmed him. Driven him half-crazy with her snorts and cackles, her clumsy antics. Her talk about microcosms and doll’s houses. And then at the end, her aching vulnerability. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone so badly.

  As the night air cleared his head, he realised something else. In truth, he didn’t want to be out there. He didn’t want a campfire or stars. He didn’t want to be lost. He wanted to be upstairs, tucked under that raggedy old patchwork quilt. With her.

  ‘In your dreams, mate.’

  Back inside the house, he moved quietly along the hall. He made it as far as his bedroom door before he realised how wired he was. The only way he’d manage to get to sleep tonight would be with a handful of pills. Instead, he continued to his office. Settling into his big leather chair, he switched on the desk lamp and peeled the cover off his typewriter.

  Behind him, he heard the pad of soft feet.

  He glanced around, half-hopeful, but it was only Poe. The cat bounded to the top of the bookcase and stared down at him, hissing. His shaggy black fur hackled up and his ragged ears flattened. He hissed at Tom, his wild green eyes full of contempt.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom murmured, ‘same to you.’

  Since Abby’s arrival, the kitchen window stayed shut at night, trapping Poe inside. Tom, do you realise the damage a normal domestic cat can do to wildlife? And Poe is hardly a paragon of normalcy. He makes the word ‘feral’ seem tame. Poor old Poe, deprived of his hunting, had gotten it into his furry head to blame this indignity on Tom.

  Tom flinched as Poe let
out a yowl resembling the cry of a bird more than anything remotely feline. One bird in particular took up roost in Tom’s mind: Edgar Allan’s raven. The black bird who’d perched above the door and recited its tale of woe, slowly turning the writer mad.

  Something to look forward to.

  Tom looked down at his typewriter and turned his thoughts to Frankie Wigmore. To the novel her kidnapping had inspired. He could block in a few scenes – maybe start with Lilly’s arrival home in 1953, then cut back in time to the abduction.

  Liking this plan, he wound fresh paper into the typewriter and tapped out a few paragraphs. But then couldn’t get the bird motif out of his head. Not Poe’s raven. Rather, the small brown songbird who had bewitched an emperor.

  Leaning back in his chair, he looked at the ceiling. Saw, in his mind’s eye, the hidden room with its barred window and bloodstained sheets. The two young sisters caged together there for five years. Faded little songbirds forgotten by the world.

  Hunching over his typewriter, he pounded out a paragraph. Then stalled again.

  He had travelled extensively, but the places he’d gravitated to were the less inhabited ones. The deserts and wildwoods, the isolated coastal plains and mountains. He didn’t know what it was like to be caged. What it was like to be confined to a room year after year while everyone forgot you. He had never needed to know.

  Never wanted to.

  Until now.

  • • •

  It was midnight, so I didn’t bother with shoes or dressing gown – I padded downstairs as I was and went along the hall towards the kitchen. Halfway there, I noticed light coming from under Tom’s office door. I backtracked a few steps, but one of the floorboards creaked under my foot.

  ‘That you, Abby?’

  I froze, not wanting him to see me in my threadbare pyjamas and fuzzy bedsocks. Not because I was modest – far from it – but just . . . because.

  The door opened and Tom stood there. He looked rumpled and sleepy, the dressy shirt he’d worn at dinner replaced by a comfortable pullover, his hair raked about.